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Dulce de leche cupcake

I didn’t think this day would come, but here it is: I have something negative (well kind of) to say about a cupcake.

Yesterday was stressful. Deadlines were piling up, I had interviews to do, stories to write, personal issues to deal with, and to really kick everything up a notch, I’m in the middle of moving to a new apartment. (If you live in New York, you know what an immense, flaming pain in the arse this is.) So as I tried to work my way through everything, I realized I needed coffee to give me a much-needed boost, but since the office machine only had decaff (an entirely pointless drink) I decided to get some fresh air and a cup of joe elsewhere. Once I was outside though, I thought, well hell, why don’t I just cut across Bryant Park and mosey on over to Crumbs where I can get a cupcake to go with my coffee.

So I did, and as my eyes bounced around cookie-crumb covered, sprinkle crusted, coconut flake topped cupcakes, they finally landed on the dulce de leche cupcake. Minutes later, cupcake and coffee in hand, I hurriedly made my way back through the park and up to the office.

Where's the dulce de leche??

I pulled the behemoth treat out of its paper bag. It was a fat chocolate cupcake topped with a cream cheese type frosting, and then crisscrossed with chocolate and dulce de leche drizzles. As a kid in Miami, I developed a serious love for this sticky caramel-like sweet. Even now, my mom sends me packages with snack-size cups of dulce de leche. When I saw the cupcake, I imagined the inside would be oozing with it, each bite a sticky sweet bit of encouragement to keep truckin.’

Yet when I cut the cupcake in half (I was trying to minimize the mess at my desk) there was no dulce de leche to be found. Instead, the chocolate cupcake had a cream cheese frosting core, the same as the icing on top. Now, don’t get me wrong, it was still delicious, and of course I polished it off in a few big chomps, but why call it a dulce de leche cupcake if the only dulce de leche is a couple of thin drizzles on top? Had I known this, I would’ve bought a different cupcake! There were so many others I thought about getting, yet what sold me on this was one was the promise of dulce de leche.

Being April 1st, I thought it might have been an April Fool’s Day joke, but then that’s not even funny! ::Sigh:: You let me down this time, Crumbs.